Fair enough :) Like I said everything on D-tier isn't uncommon in the EDM world!

Well said. And I think this applies to genres beyond EDM to urban and most Pop today.

Yes to a degree but I have not come across a widener on a mono track that sounds like a real stereo processing when widened. It simply does not sound as exciting. Just wide. I barely use my Leapwing Stage One imager cause even though it is fully mono compatible and can do wonders , wonders always come with a price. You can easily overdo it even with this plugin. Playing with phase coherency is one of the most exciting things to do. To simply find the boundary of when its too much. However what you say makes a lot of sense on club oriented or in general mono compatibility aimed tracks that are being created in a "needs to be mono compatible" mind state as first priority and then adding some imaging so they don't sound boring in stereo. In other words , I agree with what you say only I don't find it an all around solution that always works. Sometimes you want this extra something that only risking everything in the real stereo domain can give you

No worries; you're welcome!

Thanks mate! If you're ever in Melbourne hit me up!

Thank you!

getting to the end of the video now, you mention the hpf lbf usage, which i think if done properly in the mix makes side info less relavant

Ok, now I watched your entire video and it's funny. The things that I chose are all over the place in your tier list :D Starting with Microdelays. This is basically what you called "Phase Alignment". Definitely S-tier. Even though I would like to stress I love doing this manually. Cause you used some plugin thumbnail to reference this technique there and I know this plugin can do auto-alignment for you. Idk if you use that feature but I tried to use it myself like a month ago in different plugins' demos and I always found that the results were really inconsistent and haven't blown me away. So I ended up just applying microdelays by feel, the simplest form and most oldschool way, and that just felt so right. Cause sometimes I feel like the alignment of maximum correlation is not the same as the one with maximum vibe. Now Glue. That one's funny. You called it Group Bus Processing and put it right in the trashcan of D-tier :D I mean, I totally get what you mean. Especially if you use multiband plugins on those buses, the phase reslationship with some of the other tracks just gets messy sometimes. But I feel like this is just the compromise for the thickness you get from this process. Without group bus processing a mix can feel hanging loose and I don't like that. I'd rather have some trouble keeping the phase between a bunch of tracks nice. And finally Parallel-Reverb, which you called Parallel Processing in general. Yeah, I should have generalized it more as well. Sometimes I love putting 4 compressors in parallel or something. And ofc, just as you mentioned, you can just add even more effects to each chain. It's just awesome! --- Now here are some more things I noticed during the video: You completely forgot to mention modulation effects, like flanger, phaser, tremolo, vibrato, frequency shifter, pitchshifter, allpass filter etc. I know these are typically used more creatively and because of that sometimes frowned upon by mixing people, but don't underestimate them! A subtle phaser for example can be just the right tool to make a sound breathe while also adding a bit of stereo width. A frequency shifter can be the perfect tool to add some subtle shimmer on a reverb send. A series of allpass filters can be the perfect tool to round off a kick's lowend etc. Gating sucks. It's way too aggressive, just as you mentioned. But try downwards expanders, if you haven't already. Especially those with lookahead, like pro-mb in singleband mode. You'll see it lets you dial in the dynamics much more delicately and because of that find their place on a lot of drum mics without making the jumpy phase relationships obvious. (But still be careful with rides ofc) You have put multiband processing in general very low, but I'd like to stress that at least multiband saturation can be super effective. Because there's a thing called "intermodulation" which basically means the more frequencies you saturate at the same time the more they produce weird artefacts that go beyond just adding harmonics and that causes clutter in the spectrum. so splitting a complex signal into lots of bands, while surely adding problematic phase relationships, also makes sure the intermodulation stays low, which i find very valuable sometimes, at least on sounds that don't have to worry a lot about phase

Haha ! I knew the sidechaining would catch up a few people; but I completely get where you're coming from here!

i think the problem is that most people think they need to use pro-c2's pump mode when using sidechain because it was designed for that, but they should try opto every once in a while, which gives a much more subtle flavour that is more suitable for less aggressive genres

Nice thanks for sharing; why do you choose to take low-end out of the spectrum?

@@panorama_mastering straight mid/side with Pro-Q 3. Just highpass everything under (100-140 depending on the track) out of the stereo spectrum. Keep your bass and kick mono down the center and give them room to smack. Don't want your kick smothering the low end clarity of your stereo elements (specifically for rock/metal guitars, but applies to synths in pop/EDM as well).

Thanks man!

Thanks for watching man! Electronic Music people representing in the comments here :P

Hey Man; Thanks; really appreciate it; I think perspective is important; but also context; every process, approach and tool can be S tier given the right set of circumstances; what I hope these videos do is stimulate viewers to consider how and why they do certain things; that's the most important;

How about getting it for free? ;) It's available for download when joining the newsletter ! www.panoramamastering.com.au/subscribe-to-the-newsletter

@@panorama_mastering legend!

@@panorama_mastering Free is way too cheap, your content is super useful and interesting. However, I subscribed to your newsletter but I can't find the download link anywhere for those Valhalla presets, can you help where to look?

When I'm mixing; I rarely use these; so... C tier?

You're spot on; what works for one mightn't work for another.

Everything outputs to the mix bus and any “group” style processing or heavy handed fx goes on parallel channels feeding the mix bus. I can control overall group levels with vca faders

Check my latest video!

You're welcome!

Thanks man! And your mixes sound banging!

@@panorama_mastering -- Thank you! I've learned a lot from you on this channel!

Send me an email nicholas@panoramamastering.com.au I'll send to you directly;

It's free; I left a link on one of the commenters in this thread to download;

Nice! I hear you!

I had a video like this planned out; and I put it in the archive; should I revisit it?

@@panorama_mastering Yes indeedy :)

Good question; no I wouldn't include it because it encapsulates the whole signal; whilst you need to be careful how you FEED the mix bus; most of the time if you have a set sound/chain you use on the mix bus you get a feel for how to hit it to get the most out of it;

Nice! Are you using different compressors in a chain or the same ones?

@@panorama_mastering both, but mostly different. I think this is very classic. But it took way too long to successfully chain compressors... Getting used to it. It's just clearer. Probably worth adding are: knee, side chain filtering

Mate! Thanks for flagging this, just checked out Auto Align 2; I have a bunch of mixes on the cards this week with live drums; I'm going to definitely upgrade to Align 2

Nope, when you have seperate group busses filtered with band passes so you can process each band seperately from one another

@@panorama_mastering copy! Ty so much. I did start to split the stereo bus with 2 aux tracks pre of the stereo bus. All channels get sent to those two tracks, I have dr.midside, 1 in mid and 1 in side mode, then they both go to the stereo buss. But I don’t exactly know the cut off points of this two plugins. I’ll have to check the phase, ty so much

Nice !!

@@panorama_mastering recently tho, I really been dialing in levels and panning and it's been such a massive deal breaker, don't need to process shit as much if the levels are set correctly from jump, and you don't need gimmicky stereo widening tools if the pans are good!

There's a new version? Awesome! Thanks for the shout!

@@panorama_mastering yup, it now has another knob to make the lower frequencies mono, so you can make things wide whilst making the low end mono